


Last Way Out

by CloudDreamer



Series: Demon Eyes [18]
Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Languages, Lyfrassir Edda Has A Bizarre Space Road Trip, Sympathetic Doctor Carmilla, Take two with this idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: She picks up a stray on the way out of the Yggsadril System.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & The Mechanisms Ensemble, Lyfrassir Edda & Dr Carmilla
Series: Demon Eyes [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698556
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	Last Way Out

She finds them in the dark.

They’ve got the worst timing imaginable, really, finishing watching the Black Box when they did. There won’t be any ships to charter in the spaceport, not this late. Not in this season, not for someone like them. Not for someone in this state. They look like they haven’t slept in a week, which, of course, they haven’t, and although they swear to everything holy that they really can pay the exorbitant fees transport to the mining colonies will cost, their insistence only makes them look more suspicious. 

Carmilla watches them try to convince the last reputable captain around as she leans against the wall, kimono draped across her languid form, covered by the long black coat. He just laughs at the increasingly frenzied former inspector, then points towards her. She reads enough from the movement of his lips to know it’s a joking suggestion. She’s got an arrest warrant a mile long, and the only reason she’s allowed to dock the Aurora in these parts is that her baby’s guns are bigger than anything this place’s got. But Lyfrassir is desperate.

Does Carmilla know about the future version of her Mechanism and those two stragglers that disappeared off the face of Midgard not too long ago? Vaguely. The full story as to how they arrived here, at the same time as her crew, not a century into its run, is a mystery, one she doesn’t seek to explore too deeply. Investigating the timeline of true immortals is a recipe for casual clusterfucks. What happens, happens. 

They look to her, the last trace of hope seeming to die as they connect the dots. Her infamy, once again, making social situations rather awkward. This place doesn’t know the full extent of her crimes— if they did, they’d waste everything they had trying to bring her down, no matter how big the guns she has at her disposal— but they’ve got an idea of the basics. Heard a rumor or two from the next star system over. 

They steel their nerves anyway, stepping up from the seat they’d taken next to the burly captain, palming over a handful of coin for the drinks they’d shared. _This kid’s developing a bit of a problem,_ Carmilla notes. _They’ll fit right in._

Kid. She almost laughs at that one. They’re older than her body, by a fair margin. Silver streaks their hair, braided down to their waist as it is. They’ll cut it, soon enough, she suspects. Once the denial runs out. She’s barely got a wrinkle. The benefits of dying at 23. 

“Heard you needed a ship,” she offers, some amusement in the lilt of her accented voice. Some of the syllables in this reconstructed Midgard language don’t fit right on her Terran tongue. “Get out of the system quick.” 

“That’s right,” Lyf says, their guarded expression hiding panic. Poorly. “They say you have one.”

“If you’re... what’s the word? Needy?” 

“In need?”

“Desperate,” she settles on. “Yes. I can help.” 

“I can pay,” they say, a little too eager. 

“Not interested in your coin. It’ll be useless soon enough.”

“You— you know? You believe me?” 

“It’s not a matter of believing. It is, quite literally, if you know where to look, written on the walls,” she says, hoping she gets the idiom right. She hasn’t been here for long. Not as long as she would’ve liked. This was a delicate matter, and she’d erred on the side of caution, with timing. “But I’ll accept a song or two to ferry you off this in motion train wreck, pardon my mixed metaphors.”

“Song? I’m not a musician,” they say, one hand on the suitcase they’ve crammed all their worldly possessions into, spitting that last word out like it’s an insult. They really have spent too much time with her kid and also those other two. Her crew’s going to love Lyf, if they don’t end up shooting them. She just needs to assure Jonny he’s not getting any more competition before introducing the two, and it should be fine.

“Right, different words. _Ef,_ for this language,” she swears, under her breath with that last bit. “Story. Tale.”

“I’d be crazy to accept an offer that good. I’m pretty sure the rest of these guys think you’re going to eat me.”

“I don’t eat passengers,” Carmilla says. “Haven’t slipped up that bad in millennia.” 

“That’s the opposite of reassuring.” Lyf looks at her sharp teeth, intruding on their lips in a new light. “But I don’t have any other options, do I?” 

“Nope,” she replies, cheerfully.


End file.
